


Some Pair We Are

by scifigeek14



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 11, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Episode Related, M/M, Post-Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 10, Pre-Slash, and have a feelings jam, let's ignore the darkness for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 07:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4091557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigeek14/pseuds/scifigeek14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas deals with the aftermath of Rowena's spell on him. If anyone can understand the blood lust, it's Dean. But is there something more to it?</p><p>I wanted to write a happy ending to the cliffhanger of the season 10 finale. TFW needs some rest! pre-slash destiel: lots of feelings and flirting but no actual admitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Pair We Are

Dean cracked an eyelid open and blinked. It was sunny outside.

“Sam? You okay?” He asked, glancing over at his brother who was looking around similarly confused.

“Yeah.” They both slowly relaxed into their seats.

“Huh, I was expecting something … bigger. Some apocalypse style destruction or, at least, eternal night.”

“Where did it go?” Sam asked as they got out of the car and started to push it out of the pothole it had trapped its back wheel in.

“Who cares, man? Let’s just be glad it didn’t do any damage and worry about it later,” Dean brushed him off, while dusting off his hands and heading back to the driver’s seat, “I’m calling this a win.” He revved the engine. “Let’s go tell Cas I lost the Mark.”

“Oh, shit!”

“What?”

“I left Cas with Crowley and Rowena.”

“You what? I’m not worried about Crowley, but that Rowena bitch is just bad news, Sam!”

“Well then, hurry up! Turn left!”

“He better be okay, Sam! I swear to all that is holy that if you make me lose another friend… God! I’m still pissed at you, you know.”

“I know, just hurry up! He isn’t answering his cell.”

“Damn it. Damn it, Cas.” He pressed a little harder on the gas pedal.

When they reached the place that Sam had left Rowena, Crowley, and Cas to do the spell, Rowena was long gone. Sam and Dean walked into the room carefully; it was like a tornado had gone through there.

“Dean,” Sam called softly, “I found Crowley, or at least his meat suit.”

Dean walked over and nearly gagged. It looked like he’d been torn apart by a wild beast. His stomach was ripped open and his face was clawed up. Chunks of his body were spread over the floor and the blood was fresh and flowing.

Dean was praying that he wasn’t going to find Cas like this, when a soft whimper drew his gaze to the far back of the room. He squinted his eyes and saw a body huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around knees, eyes wide.

“Cas!” He exclaimed breathlessly, rushing over and dropping to his knees in front of him.

Cas was covered in blood. It was dried around his eyes, like he’d been bleeding from them, it was all over his mouth, all over his tan coat and white shirt, soaking his hands, it was under his nails. Most of it wasn’t his. Dean recognized the spell right away. Rowena had wammied him with her rabid dog spell. He wasn’t sure how he’d broken it, but Dean wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth on this one. Cas was shaking, his ice blue eyes wild and haunted.

Dean slowly reached out to him and Cas let him. Sam hung back while Dean pulled off his outer shirt and wiped the blood from Cas’s hands and mouth with the red flannel. He watched silently from afar while Dean licked his thumb and rubbed the dried blood from the skin under Cas’s eyes. He stepped out of the way while Dean pulled Cas up and supported him all the way to the car. He didn’t complain once when Cas got shotgun.

Cas didn’t talk till they were back in the bunker. Dean suggested that Cas grab a shower, human style, since he didn’t seem up to mojoing himself clean and the hot water might help calm him down, and promised to go grab him some pjs to borrow. Cas nodded and was about to head to the bathroom when he paused and looked back.

“Did it work?” He asked, softly. Neither Sam nor Dean had to ask what he meant. Dean walked over and showed him his bare arm proudly.

“It’s gone.” And Cas smiled.

They talked about the removal of the Mark and the upcoming danger of the Darkness with a capital D over pizza. Cas didn’t know anything about it other than whispers. It was something of a myth among angels, something to tell kids before bed. Not that angels had kids. Cas didn’t know where Rowena went, but he suspected that the spell broke since it was centered on Crowley it had broken when he fled back to Hell – yes, Crowley was alive in gaseous form somewhere. Rowena hadn’t factored in that her spell would make Cas want to rip him apart and forgo the angel blade, giving Crowley the chance to do a runner. It was probably for the best, Dean thought, they might need his help against the Darkness.

There was still tension between Sam and Dean. The pizza reminded the three of the last time they had shared that meal and of the missing member of the party. Cas didn’t need to eat, but he ate a breadstick in Charlie’s place. Human things felt right to him at that moment: hot showers, Dean’s flannel pajama bottoms and t-shirt, greasy breadsticks that he pretended didn’t taste like molecules, Dean making a reference to pop culture that he understood but still didn’t quite get. Those were safe things to Cas. They weren’t angelic, they weren’t monstrous. Cas didn’t want anything to do with feeling strong or powerful just then. Dean let him have that.

“Night, Sammy,” Dean called into Sam’s room as he passed by, letting him know that they’d be okay eventually. But he didn’t wait for the response before moving on to his true destination. Cas had turned in early, after borrowing Dean’s toothbrush without asking. Dean knew he probably should have been grossed out by that but he wasn’t too concerned about angel germs and he wasn’t gunna crack down on Cas for not getting human social norms when he was still clearly upset.

It was because of how he was acting that Dean wanted to check in on him before he checked out for the night.

“Cas?” He asked, confused by what he found in the room. Cas was just sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall, “Thought you were turned in for the night. What’s up?”

“Angels don’t sleep, Dean,” He answered, not turning around, “You know that.”

“What about some rest, then? Just lay down and close your eyes for a bit? You’ve had a rough day, man. We all have.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t what? Stop guarding that wall?”

“Can’t close my eyes without seeing Crowley’s blood everywhere.” He raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. It was a habit that he’d picked up from Sam. His shoulders were so tense. He looked vulnerable in a way Dean wasn’t used to, in Dean’s clothes. Dean sighed and walked in to the room to sit down next to him on the bed.

“You don’t care about Crowley and you have had blood on your hands before. So, what’s different about this time? What’s got you so out of whack?”

“I couldn’t control it. I was so angry and I wasn’t in control of it. I couldn’t stop. It was like I was watching my hands rip and tear without any say. It scared me. _I_ scared me.”

“I get it, man. Boy, do I get that. Being afraid of what you are capable of, feeling out of control.”

“No, it’s different. I felt like, like when Naomi controlled me. I don’t like not being in control, because the last time that happened I nearly killed you.”

Hey,” Dean put his hand on Cas’s shoulder and tugged, maneuvering him until they both sat at the head of the bed, leaning against the wall, “We’re both still here, came out the other side of it all. Besides, I figure we’re even after the way I dinged you up the other day. I near about killed you this time. We’ve both been there.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand.” There was a silence, but Dean just waited. Eventually it paid off, and Cas let out a big sigh before looking at his hands.

“I felt helpless without my grace, but now. I scared me what I can do. What I am willing to do, for you.”

“For me?” Dean asked, nonplussed at the shift in the conversation.

“When I came to, standing over Crowley’s meatsuit, my first thought was ‘good’,” He shook his head, refusing to look at Dean, “I’m an angel. We were trained to deliver clean, quick, and merciful kills, even to demons. But it didn’t matter. All the mattered was that he was dead, or at least I thought for a second he was, before the fog cleared and I remembered him escaping. That's irrelevant. I thought he was dead, that he was done messing around in our lives. I hated him. I hated him for leading me astray years ago, for leading you to the Mark of Cain, for letting you turn into a demon and taking you away from me, from us. I looked at what I’d done and was relieved, because I wanted him dead. I didn’t care how.

“I would do it again. That’s what scares me. I’d do it again. And I will. When I get my hands on Metatron I’ll do worse. Because, now that the Mark is gone, he serves no purpose. I have no reason for letting him live. He killed you and for that I will make him suffer.”

“Why me?” Dean inquired in a whisper, his voice stolen by the fury in Cas’s own. Finally, Cas turned to Dean, pinning him under the laser focus of his gaze.

“Because you are mine,” Cas stated, unabashedly, “I’ve been possessive – selfish – about you since I pulled you out of Hell.”

Dean flashed back to a dozen or so joking conversations with Sam that the hand print on his shoulder was Cas’s way of calling angelic dibs. The hand print had disappeared sometime after Stull. He’d noticed it in the shower his first night at Lisa’s. Dean always suspected it was Cas’s way of saying goodbye, that he wasn’t coming back and Dean had to stand on his own, no angel to watch his back. Maybe it was to give him a chance at being normal. You can talk off an anti-possession tattoo as a tribal design, but a scar in the shape of a hand print would have been a little bit tougher to explain. Dean actually found that he missed it sometimes. Dean remembered that time Cas had been pulled up to Heaven to be reprogrammed because he was getting too close to Dean. He remembered a belligerent Cas yelling at him, ‘I am hunted, I rebelled, and I did it, all of it, for you’.

Dean understood that. He felt the same way about Sam. Hell, he felt that way about Cas most days. He remembered slashing his way through Purgatory to get to his angel. And now said angel was visibly distressed, having turned away from Dean again, and Dean needed to fix that. He couldn’t fix everything, maybe not his relationship with Sam, maybe not the things he’d done as a demon – he certainly couldn’t fix the Mark, he’d needed help for that – but he could fix this. He scooted closer until his bicep pressed up against Cas.

“I’m a pretty lucky guy to have you as a guardian angel, Cas,” He offered, jostling Cas a bit, “And as a best friend.” That got a smile. Just a twitch of the corner of the lips. But it was one of Dean’s favorite smiles Cas had, because it was the first one he’d ever gotten out of him – a little twitch of amusement, a chink in the angelic armor.

“I hadn’t ever had a friend before you, Dean.” Dean smiled at that, figuring that he’d probably been accountable for a lot of Cas’s firsts. Then he thought, wow that sounded dirty. Then he remembered that he hadn’t personally been responsible for any of those firsts at all and he still really hated that April chick. And Meg. He shook his head to get his mind out of the gutter.

“I’d do some pretty crazy shit for you too, man,” He admitted, “That’s why I was gunning for Metatron so badly. Not cause he was messing up the world, but cause he hurt you. I hated him for that.” Dean paused. He hated these mushy emotional talks, but at least it was always less awkward with Cas than with Sam. “I guess I’m protective of you too. Benny used to call you My Angel; sounded capitalized, like a title. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re mine too, Cas.”

“What if I wasn’t anymore, your angel, I mean?” Dean frowned.

“You don’t want to be, mine?” He asked, wondering if he had misread the conversation that badly and made the angel uncomfortable.

“I was referring more to the angel part,” Cas explained his question, “What if I wasn’t an angel?”

“So? I know I messed up pretty bad last time you were human, but you have to know that me being a dick and forcing you out wasn’t anything to do with you not being an angel anymore. Why are you asking? You in trouble?”

“No,” He calmed Dean’s fears as they bubbled up, “Just something the witch said. Actually, something Metatron brought up first.”

“Talk to me. Use your words,” Dean teased. Cas had never been known for his loquacity.

“I suppose their point could be summed up by saying that they called me a mutt. Stuck somewhere between angel and human but not really either.”

“I like that you aren’t like other angels. They can be real dicks.”

“I just feel … lost,” He turned to look at Dean, “I don’t know what my purpose is anymore. I don’t understand my role. Who am I?”

“You’re Cas,” Dean answered without hesitation, then repeated it as if reaffirming it would solidify it, "You're Cas."

“Is that enough?”

“Always has been, for me.” Cas looked startled, blinking at Dean. If he’d been human he looked like he might have had his breath knocked out of him. Dean vowed to cause that look again, as often as possible. Maybe one day he’d get the angel to blush.

“You have such faith in me, Dean.” He sounded amazed, amazed that Dean felt that way after all the ways they had both hurt each other over the years. Dean just smiled and turned to rest more fully against the wall, pulling his arms up to pillow behind his head.

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who taught me to have faith, after all. So, I decided to have it in you. It’s worked out alright so far, you know, over all.”

Cas twitched out a smiled and let out some of the tension in his body, bringing his shoulder in contact with Dean’s side and side of his head with Dean’s elbow. It felt right, having Cas close. Cas had always had a problem with personal space. Dean had gotten used to having him in his bubble. It felt right to have him where Dean could reach out and grab a hold if he needed to, not that he would while they were in a bed together.

“If I tell you something, promise not to tell Sam?” Dean asked. Cas nodded his consent, “When you were human? I still prayed to you sometimes, even though I knew you couldn’t hear me.”

“You did?” And there was that look again. Dean decided it was his new favorite Cas look.

“Yeah. Like I’d pray to some other punk angel?” Dean joked, knowing full well that it was going unsaid that he needn’t have prayed at all.

“I’m not sure when I stopped praying to my father,” Cas admitted after a pause, “Perhaps it was after we averted the apocalypse. But it was in Purgatory, listening to your prayers, that I began to pray to you. It is completely blasphemous and inappropriate for an angel to pray to a human. It is also rather unprecedented, I suspect.”

“Damn,” Dean breathed, astonished at the revelation that he was the one Cas prayed to, “Look at us, some pair we are, only praying to each other. No wonder Heaven can’t stand us.” Cas huffed a small laugh and gave a rare smile, the one that actually included teeth.

Cas looked better now, but Dean could still see the shadows of tonight’s earlier doubts lingering, waiting to pounce. Dean felt his own darkness stalking him, despite being free of the Mark. Blood lust like that wasn’t something easily put behind someone. Dean wondered how Sam was sleeping or if he was up too. Dean felt tired. He felt old. His bones ached. He thought Cas looked older too. He wondered if that was a direct result of spending a part of a year as a human. Dean knew that a person could age more in one year than most if it was a tough one, and it had certainly been that.

“You need to shake this whole thing off, Cas. Just sleep it off and start fresh.”

“Dean—” But Dean cut him off.

“Just lay down,” He gently pushed on Cas’s shoulders until he slid down the wall and laid parallel to the sheets, “The big bad Darkness can wait till tomorrow. I’ll watch over you.”


End file.
